So I just got back from LibertyCon International 2024 in Washington DC: libertarians are slowly coming around on Bitcoin. Many of them are not committed, die-hard HODLers, but that may come over time. I had the pleasure of being invited to speak and had a chance to catch up with some libertarians from around the world. And to be clear, the SFL (Students for Liberty) team have been quite big adopters and users of Bitcoin themselves, offering it as payment for their staff, and even using it to help students and activists around the world.
But here are a few reflections from my experience talking with libertarians.
Transactional bias?
There were some prominent libertarians such as Bryan Caplan who were still under the impression that Bitcoin was mainly to be used for black or grey market transactions - almost completely underplaying the savings and HODLing use. Now to be fair to Bryan, he was humble enough to admit that he was initially wrong to not HODL from the earlier years of Bitcoin. But in another way, we are still extremely early if this many libertarians still don’t see the case for HODLing.
If we consider the typical technology adoption chart, Bitcoin use is still extremely early! I believe we’re still in the innovators phase if we’re considering people who actually hold a serious amount of their net worth in bitcoin.
Some of them are still stuck on gold
Some libertarians I spoke with were still stuck on gold. Perhaps the bias here is for those libertarians over 40, or who are professionally connected to the gold world in some way, whether that is hosting a show about commodities and metals, or gold mining.
Libertarians under 40 more clearly see the point of Bitcoin, and that came through in the conversations I had.
But some of them do get it
Don’t get me wrong, there were still some libertarians who clearly HODL a bag of bitcoin. This tended to be wealthier libertarians though. Perhaps that is what we should expect? Easier to HODL if you are the type of person who has enough income or wealth to save.
As the threat of CBDCs becomes more prominent, it will become more clear to people that they will need to seriously consider Bitcoin. I also did a quick video including some mini interviews with Topher Field, Peter St Onge and Ryan McMaken which you can view here.
Recent Podcast overview
Bitcoin Life Insurance with Zac Townsend SLP545
Those of you who saw my recent discussion with Tuur Demeester might have seen him mention his interest in the concept of Bitcoin Life Insurance, and what do you know? There’s actually a company doing it now - CEO and co-founder Zac joins me to talk about it:
We discuss the model of life insurance, and the unique aspect of doing it denominated in bitcoin
Obvious elephant in the room discussion: is this going to be the next Celsius or BlockFi? We talk about the risks involved, how the company Meanwhile is going to invest with some expectation of positive bitcoin denominated returns. We did spend a lot of time discussing back and forth on this key question. I do express my skepticism that a positive expectation for bitcoin denominated returns will be difficult. See the discussion for yourself (it’s timestamped), but I believe in reflection, it may be that bitcoin life insurance has to be done without positive bitcoin denominated return. Or at least, it must be ultra conservative.
2024 Lightning Wallet Overview with Anita Posch
Next up, Anita Posch rejoins me to talk about her recent self custodial lightning wallet test exercise, where she operated LN apps in Africa with poor connectivity. We discussed:
Results of the tests - spoiler: Phoenix Wallet and Mutiny Wallet came out on top.
We also spoke about her attendance at the recent Adopting Bitcoin Cape Town Conference, and a relatively new bitcoin circular economy, Bitcoin Witsand.
That said, I did slightly critique the structure of the test as given the varying fee environment nowadays, it’s likely not feasible for people with lower socioeconomic status to be using self custodial lightning apps - perhaps they will be better served using custodial apps until they have enough to justify the fees that come with self custody. Here, apps such as Blink or Wallet of Satoshi may be easier on-ramps (with their own trade offs, custodial risk, or wallet shut down for example).
It will be challenging for bitcoin educators going forward as there will be other models that may offer useful tradeoffs, but require some explanation to newcoiners. e.g. If you onboard somebody using Aqua, how much explanation about Liquid and the Liquid federation do you need to give them? Or if you onboard them to a fedimint using ecash, how much education do they need about that?
Separately, I also appeared on Knut Svanholm’s Freedom Footprint Show here for those interested.
Sponsors and upcoming conferences:
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BitBlockBoom April 11th-14th 2024 in Dallas, Texas - code LIVERA
BTC Prague June 13-15th 2024 in Prague, Czech Republic - code LIVERA
Tomorrow I’ll be MC’ing and participating in the first Dubai Bitcoin-only conference, Bitcoin Oasis so keep an eye out for updates on that. That’s it from me. If you like the email updates, please share it around.
See you in the citadels!